Question for pala + 4 shaman teams

[Fuzzyboy]

Do you have a resto-spec when running heroics or do you take the extra dps and pop heals when necessary?

[BobGnarly]

I run 4xelemental. There are pros and cons to both, but I like the burst DPS abilities, and 4xlhw is about 50% of my life anyway. I do miss earth shield, but I've had no problems so far. In fact, I can almost kill Noth with this team of 5, so the healing isn't tooo bad.

The only downside is that you have to stop all dps to heal, and this can be a problem on fights where time is an issue (like phase 3 black knight) - you need to keep dps up. One thing that helps though is that, after a few casts my 4 shaman tend to get a out of sync with each other for whatever reason (lag, cast pushback). After 3-4 casts, they are all over the place casting, which is pain for me having to mash buttons (gonna get carpal), but the nice thing is there is always somebody coming around for a heal soon. Plus, I can kind of feather the heals a little bit depending on how low I am. It's kind of hard to explain, but basically I'm just trying to say that it's not as bad as it seems having to wait for one cast to complete (or interrupt) before you get any heals.

So yeah, there are disadvantages to it, but I've always been able to figure out an approach that would work, and having the 4xdps is great.

[Powerwar]

I used a dedicated healer at the beginning when my paladin was undergeared... entered my first heroic being NOT def capped and with 17k HP on my tank (buffed). The only way to survive was to spamheal my tank.

After getting decent gear the healer became also DPS and now I have 4 elemental shamans that top me in the very rare ocassions I need to get the tank topped.

btw, do you happen to post on a well known adult webmaster board? I have seen that same avatar there too... don't think it's a coincidence :)

[Fuzzyboy]

Powerwar: LOL... It's George Costanza from Seinfeld - not me :-P

[Ualaa]

One of my shammies is resto dual-spec.
The other three are single spec elemental.

Pally is dual spec, Prot/Holy and deep Prot.
Honestly don't use the 2nd spec on her all that much.
Was going to have her heal BG's for gear, since I cannot force the horde to attack my tank.
Have not taken this team into BG's much.

I like Earth Shield and Riptide.
They trivialize a lot of things which would be harder without.
Going 3x dps full time and 1x healer is about the same as 4x healing a quarter of the time and all of them DPS the rest.
Either works, its preference.

[Powerwar]

Powerwar: LOL... It's George Costanza from Seinfeld - not me :-P

I know who is he. The nickname is also almost the same. that's why I asked

nwm, not a big deal... must be one of these funny coincidences you find from time to time :)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I've yet to run into a heroic where weaving in heals from the elemental shams wasn't good enough, and I have 33% more DPS for all those fights where a resto's abundant healing just isn't needed.

[Niley]

only used resto when heroics were still kinda hard in the beginning of wotlk.
I dont even heal now(paladin has stupid amount of hp), let JoL, SoL and totems do all that(I dont use SoV for 5 box heroics, only raids)

[Dorffo]

I tried switching one ele to resto for all of a couple days and since I'd never used the dedicated healer approach with my crew I found that it caused many more issues than it solved (but that was all playstyle and the fact that my last dedicated healer was a holypriest healbot in my 2boxing days).

The healing setup that I used from TBC through ToC10 was:

g: heal tank (lhw x4)
shift-g: heal self (lhw on self for each sham)
ctrl-g: lhw spam on tanks target or targetoftarget

h: chain heal tanks target or targetoftarget
shift-h: chainheal self

[Fef]

Like many already said : I found a dedicated healing shaman absolutely necessary at first. Now that my team is geared (mostly the paladin, but also the shamans for these fights where killing the boss fast is key), I prefer the extra DPS and run without the comfort of a dedicated healer.

[Schwarz]

I started out with a dedicated healer and I haven't switched back yet. Trying to dps on my healer is really hard. Everyone else is hitting around 3k dps and the healer is having problems hitting 1k.

[Jubber]

Like most have said. Having a dedicated healer is nice to begin with. Once your team gets geared up a bit not even alot you can do it with 4 ele's. Like Ugh said start off my weaving lhw's in your macro's. That helps. Then I had a key that made 2 of my shamans cast lesser heals together so that the other 2 can still dps. Your healing totems will do a good portion of the healing itself.

[Otlecs]

I still run with a resto-specced shammy, even though earth shield and totems take care of pretty much all the healing these days (except when I screw up on positioning).

It suits my play style, and although he's dual-specced and could be used for extra DPS I'm not hurting for DPS as things stand. I can include him in the DPS cycle with a key modifier anyway, but his lack of +hit means it's pretty much a waste of mana.

I continue this way in heroics even though it's not strictly necessary simply because that's how I play in PvP, and I just find it easier not to swap around my playstyle.

In fact, there was a time not so long ago where I used to run SOME encounters - and BGs - with ALL my guys resto-specced, and that allowed me to beat some encounters that I just couldn't get past with my gear as it was at the time!

Try it all ways and see what suits you best :)

[Jubber]

Yeah definately try out all the options. Find what you enjoy.

Also a couple points I just want to reiterate on what folks have said here.

I love my 5x pally team cuz they all dps and my tank gets minimal heals so I enjoy that playstyle. With the 4x shammies having them all elemental means they ahve max dps and can heal when necessary. Sure if I have a healer i can throw some dps out if I want but ,as otlecs said, she has no hit on her gear so if I do dps it probably won't hit anyways. Where as a dps spec her heal will still hit 100% and her dps will hit accordingly with her hit gear.

Obviously I would never consider this if I was raiding with my team and I wanted to min/max my numbers but if all you are doing is heroics, then I prioritize time over that safe zone. Starting out at first having a resto is great but once you start to gear it becomes unnecessary to have a "safe efficient healer."

[Multibocks]

I know who is he. The nickname is also almost the same. that's why I asked

nwm, not a big deal... must be one of these funny coincidences you find from time to time :)


Uh oh someone was caught red-handed in the cookie jar! 40 lashes for you..... wait, fuzzy might like that...

[Fuzzyboy]

Uh oh someone was caught red-handed in the cookie jar! 40 lashes for you..... wait, fuzzy might like that...

It's no secret that I appreciate a good spanking :-P

[BobGnarly]

Wow, this thread took a left turn fast! ;b

I have to admit that your avatar has always disturbed me. I mean, I know/knew what it is, I remember the episode. There's just something about that pose lol.

[daviddoran]

I currently run a mixed team, and a pally + 4 shaman team. I leveled my tank first with the mixed team, and geared him that way so when it came time to do the shamans, I didnt bother with resto, as i needed more dps. Even on my mixed team my tank rarely takes damage, my priest just spams smite... 4 Gift of the Naaru works wonders so i try and pop it whenever i need it. Totems help, and i found that the brewmaiden works like a healing stream totem, so thats kinda nice.

I probably will spec one resto, but not sure which one....